01x03 - Part 3

[bunniefuu]

(clicking)

♪ I'm looking up ♪
♪ Cause baby I've been down ♪
♪ I'm looking up ♪
♪ Tired of bringing you down ♪

(police radio chatter)

When I got there, they had the scene very well secured. They had the entire block taped off. Front door wide open, little music playing in the background, candles are lit inside. Very violent confrontation. Rage. Two victims, blood everywhere.

We find a glove... It's a left glove... and a blood trail indicating the suspect has been wounded on the left side. So we're just getting into this when we find out that this is apparently OJ Simpson's estranged wife.

We have two children asleep.

I have a very brutal m*rder.

Someone's gotta make a death notification of next of kin.

Which is Simpson.

Lang and Vannatter were talking and they called me over and said, "You were at Simpson's house once, right?

We want you to take us up there."

We pull close to the gate.

Vannatter was hitting the doorbell, they keep ringing the doorbell and so I just stroll down the street.

(ominous music)

By the other gate, there's a white Bronco.

On the driver's side door handle, blood.

I mean there was enough evidence outside, we gotta make sure everybody's okay in here.

Oh God, what are we going to do, Simpson's in there dead.

Well, yeah, we need to go in.

So I jumped up over the fence and I opened the gate.

(ominous music)

Bang on the front door, nothing.

Walk around to the back, there's a couple of bungalows.

The first one was Kato Kaelin's.

Kato Kaelin was a live-in...

... friend.

We say to the police, "Check on Mr. Simpson."

OJ's in Chicago.

Well, he left last night.

Oh, thank God.

They all leave and I'm left here with Kato Kaelin.

I go "Tell me what you did last night."

He goes, "Well I was talking on the phone and all a sudden there was, like, an earthquake.

It was just like... (pounding)

... on the wall and pictures shook."

Okay.

I walk back outside and I start walking down the back, behind the bungalows.

And then as I pan down, I see this brown, glistening...

At first I thought it was dog crap.

And then I shined a light on it. It's a glove.

Just like the one... Ed Bundy...

Uh, yeah, this is gonna get deep.

This is gonna be a crime scene.

(ominous music)

I make the decision to make a telephonic to the Brown family and I talk to Lou Brown and say that your daughter Nicole is dead.

It's quiet for about two seconds then all this screaming. It's Nicole's sister, Denise.

"I knew that m*therf*cker, he was gonna k*ll, I knew he was gonna do this."

I mean, she didn't hesitate.

Nobody comes unglued like that unless they have a strong suspicion.

We gotta look at it a little differently now.

We lock everything down, no more searching, can't do anything until we get a warrant.

Phil Vannatter called me and said, "I've got some information; I need to get a search warrant.

I need you to tell me if you think it sounds okay."

And he just summarized the evidence and it was huge.

Okay, yeah, go ahead, get the search warrant, you're fine.

And he said, "You know who it is?

It's OJ Simpson."

OJ Simpson?

Um...

I was never into sports, so I didn't even know what game he played.

I thought he was a has-been.

Monday afternoon came around, Simpson came back from Chicago and they handcuff him.

It was quite surprising.

Your ex-husband's always a suspect in a case.

Okay, wow. (laughing) Here we go.

(ominous music)

He said he's gonna talk to us, which is really strange.

You have one opportunity forever to talk to this guy, forever.

He's thinking he can control a couple of cops.

Especially these guys 'cause, you know, they're pretty nice.

What Vannatter and Lang failed to do was simply to pin him down on what he did on the day of the m*rder.

OJ just rambled and created an interview transcript that was useless to the prosecution.

What do you mean, you were running around doing what you do?

What do you mean?

What do you mean you cut yourself in Chicago but the blood got on the Bronco before you left.

What do you mean?

There's a million things that they just let go.

Yeah, uh huh, yeah, uh huh.

Oh my God.

What I wanted was his blood, photographs taken of the bleeding finger, I wanted his fingerprints now that we've got his cooperation.

We get the blood, we get all these things we want which are going to be evidence.

And then, ya know, he's released.

What?

Why would you do that?

If he was any other guy, would you have let him go?

And they said, "Where can he go?

After all, what can he do?"

I mean, everybody recognizes him.

(orchestral music)

When I went over to Rockingham, he had like three TV's and each and every one of them, he had a different channel on.

Suspect, what are you talking about?

Is he crazy?

And I said, "OJ, what happened to your finger?"

And he says, "I cut it on a glass in Chicago."

And I went oh, okay.

Somebody else sat down and asked him the same question and he said, "I was chipping golf balls."

And I went, uh-hmm, later on that evening, same question came out, "Oh man, I was getting the cell phone out of the Bronco, cut myself."

I was like, wow.

I tried to leave there and OJ goes, "Shipp, hold on." and he says, "They asked me to take a lie detector test.

I told them no."

I said, "What do you mean, you told them no?"

And he says, you know, jokingly, he says "Well, you know to be truthful, Shipp, I have had dreams of k*lling her."

I wanted to leave.

I said, "I'm outta here."

Here, at OJ Simpson's home, in the fashionable suburb of Brentwood, the world media has settled in to the siege.

Against the public backdrop, police are quietly, methodically reconstructing the events of last Sunday evening to answer the question: Could this American sports hero, possibly, be a m*rder*r?

(deep bass music)

(jet engines)

At the time that this m*rder took place, OJ was at home, awaiting a limousine to take him to the airport for a promotional event in Chicago.

OJ Simpson has described him as his quarterback.

He is defense attorney Robert Shapiro.

I agree with that assessment.

(upbeat music)

He was known as the fixer.

He was a Hollywood lawyer.

He was not know as a "trial dogg" with two G's.

You hired Bob Shapiro to cut a deal.

Bob had never tried a m*rder case.

And so when he called me in June and said, "I need some help in the OJ case."

I was more than ready.

Well, I worked for Bob Shapiro on some of his other cases and I was pretty successful.

So they recruited me as the defense investigator.

OJ was putting together his team.

They sent a guy over to me.

"Hey man, we're putting together this thing."

"We're going to need you, OJ needs you."

And I said, "I'm not on board."

And I'll never forget that investigator's look on his face.

He said, "What?"

I said, "OJ k*lled her, I'm not on board."

(piano music)

I gotta say, I have a lot of fun with her.

At times, I felt like a big brother to her 'cause I'd come over there and she'd share things with me.

And I kinda felt special that she thought enough of me to tell me her problems.

She's a great human being.

Thank you.

(applause)

I remember early in... in the years that her and OJ was dating, we were all down in the Caribbean.

OJ was working on a film, and if a lot of don't know, I'm gonna let you know now, blacks can not swim, we can't float.

(laughter)

Justin can.

Well, thank God, well he got that from his mom.

So, we're out in the saltwater, right?

And Nicole is out there looking like, you know, she was made to swim, she's backstroking and she's doing all these things.

So, here's OJ and I, we're standing on the shore and she's waving us in.

(laughter)

Now, this is saltwater, in the Caribbean.

Everything down there floats.

OJ and I got out there and we tried to float, and she thought that's the funniest thing she'd ever seen in her life.

She could not believe it.

And one of the things about Nicole, which all of you will agree, was Nicole's laugh.

Once that woman laughed, she was, uh...

She brought out a lot of goodness in you.

Nicole was very, very special to me.

That was my buddy.

And, um...

And I know, Sydney and Justin, you've been blessed because of a lot of her character and the goodness about her.

You're not going to notice it now, but you're going to notice it as you get older cause she's laid a great foundation for you two.

I love you, Nicole, and I love you too, Jason.

I mean Justin and Sydney and I'll always will be there for you.

(applause)

OJ Simpson may soon face legal action.

The Associated Press says a homicide detective has told them Simpson's arrest is imminent.

It is not only OJ Simpson's life that is coming under the media microscope.

Reporters are looking, too, at Ronald Goldman, the aspiring model, who was k*lled with Nicole Simpson.

His family said he was nothing more than a friend.

He was a special human being that didn't deserve what's happened.

He was gonna open a restaurant.

After Ron was m*rder*d, we went to his apartment.

He had a floor plan, he had a menu, he had names of people whose art he was gonna hang on the wall.

He had everything worked out.

Obviously, this is your older brother.

We don't get to spend very much time together, so I'm very glad that I was able to be here.

So I love you very much and I'll see you soon.

That was all taken away.

My sister's body was gonna be behind closed doors.

I said to my friend, "I can't go in there."

And as I'm having this conversation with them I'm hearing screams.

Looking at her I can remember a black dress up to her neck because what I had heard is that her head was almost cut off all the way.

Which even shocked me more and more.

I mean that was just like... and seeing her there, lying there in a coffin.

I mean, it really, I mean, I don't know, it's just terrible.

He came to the wake.

It was just unbelievable.

We were all kind of in shock that he came there.

Judy asked him directly, did you k*ll my daughter?

No, no. I loved her too much.

He was, like, on Xanax or something.

He was just sedated.

I leaned over to him and said, "We're going to get through this."

I had no idea what was going on.

(orchestral music)

Action News has learned that Simpson's attorney is working on a deal with police for Simpson's surrender to avoid what the lawyer calls, and we quote, "a media circus."

(orchestral music)

Shapiro was going to surrender him to the detectives in the morning.

We're standing outside Parker Center waiting for OJ to turn himself in.

Every time a car would pass by, is that OJ?

I think it was 11:00.

Oh, no, he doesn't show up.

I think I'd already scheduled a press conference.

And it's like, oh, no.

We potentially could look like a bunch of clowns here.

I did not know about the arrangements for his surrender.

I went with the assumption that they would announce that he had been arrested.

Gascon's coming up.

Looking out at the auditorium, not only are all the seats taken, but all the aisles are jammed, the front is jammed, the back wall is jammed.

He's on the stage.

And I was the one who was gonna have to stand out there naked.

This morning detectives for the Los Angeles Police Department sought and obtained a warrant for the arrest of OJ Simpson, charging him with the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman.

Mr. Simpson, in agreement with his attorney, was scheduled to surrender this morning, to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Initially, that was 11:00.

It then became 11:45.

Mr. Simpson has not appeared.

The Los Angeles Police Department, right now, is actively searching for Mr. Simpson.

The gasp that went through the room, I think it's right at that moment, that I realized, oh boy, this is big.

We will continue our pursuit of Mr. Simpson and hope to have him in custody soon.

He's gone.

I looked at Marika and said, "It's a helicopter story now.

Let's find this son of a bitch."

I can take a few questions.

(everyone speaks at once)

I'd known Gascon for a long time and he's a fairly easygoing guy normally.

You're gonna have to hold it down.

One at a time or won't be able to hear you.

Then a sense of humor to add a light touch.

You asked a question, would you like for me to answer?

He got pretty tightly wound that day.

I doubt that there's anyone around this country that's been monitoring television, radio, or newspapers, that doesn't know at this point that something's going on in this case.

If you, in any way, are assisting Mr. Simpson in avoiding justice, Mr. Simpson is a fugitive of justice right now.

And If you assist him in any way, you are committing a felony.

I was pissed off that we were in essence given the old Italian gesture.

I don't recall being that upset before in the DA's office.

I'm angry, I'm not embarrassed.

Angry at who, beyond...

I'm angry at OJ Simpson.

(police radio)

It is not an escape, he was not under arrest.

He was under sedation in a very very emotional state.

He was at a residence that is secluded, that is very, very hard to find, and there was never any thought of him leaving that residence without us.

This letter was written by OJ today.

First, everyone understand, I had nothing to do with Nicole's m*rder.

I loved her, always have, and always will.

If we had a problem, it's because I loved her so much.

It's 1700, 5 pm, when you have Karsashian reading the letter.

I thought, wow, maybe he k*lled himself.

I think of my life and feel I've done most of the right things, so why do I end up like this?

I can't go on.

No matter what the outcome, people will look and point.

I can't take that.

I can't subject my children to that.

We deal with folks who are in crisis and get to a very dark place and they just do it.

Don't feel sorry for me.

I've had a great life.

Great friends.

Please think of the real OJ and not this lost person.

The note says, to me, feel sorry for me but...

I'm the guy, you know, I'm the bad guy.

He was, Mr. Cawlings was with him, he was his best friend, he was by his side for the last few minutes alone while we were upstairs.

AC just had a love for OJ.

I remember once, in high school, a friend of mine had a starter p*stol that he brought to school.

So we said okay, let's go, take the g*n and pull it on OJ and act like we're gonna sh**t him.

We were all down for it.

So, we went out on the field where OJ and Al were and my friend, Ray, well, he pulled the g*n out and everybody sorta stepped back.

And Al Cowlings stepped in front of OJ.

And said, "Ray, if you gonna sh**t OJ, you gotta sh**t me first."

(police radios)

1993 Ford Bronco.

We're listening to the Los Angeles Police Department and they believe that this vehicle is somewhere in the vicinity of the El Toro Y.

And I look down below and there's the El Toro Y.

And there's a white Bronco.

Then there's a sheriff's unit and there's another sheriff's unit and another sheriff's unit.

Okay, here we are, open the door.

We get the door open and we get our very first sh*t.

And I'm back on the two way radio telling CBS, you gotta get us on the air, we found him.

And with a flip of the switch, we were on with Dan Rather.

This is Dan Rather with Connie Chung in Los Angeles and let's hold on a second here.

I'm seeing on the monitor this live helicopter coverage of the Ford Bronco being followed by the police.

And let's pick up some of the transmission from the helicopter.

They believe he's suicidal and very dangerous.

Unfortunately at this time it does not appear as though the driver is slowing down or complying with the orders of the officers.

We were on the air exclusively for 22 minutes.

And this was the most conflicted I had every been.

The gravity of the m*rder, I mean, this was a double homicide and this is a tragic story.

Very few human beings fall as far as OJ Simpson.

I've fallen quite a bit transitioning, you know, you go from being like a hero pilot to some tr*nny, you know, so I've fallen somewhat myself but this is like an epic fall.

And I'm weighing consequences of this with also the biggest news story, like, ever.

I'm going to use a pair of binoculars to try to determine whether or not I can see Mr. Simpson.

f*ck NBC, f*ck ABC, f*ck those guys.

I hope they sh**t this son of a bitch.

And I hope they k*ll him before the competitors get here.

(phone ringing)

911, what are you reporting?

This is AC.

I have OJ in the car.

Okay, where are you?

Please, I'm coming up the 5 freeway.

Okay.

Right now we are okay.

But you got to tell the police to back off.

He's still alive, but he's got a g*n to his head.

Okay, hold on a minute, Monica.

He just wants to see his mother.

Let me get him to the house.

Okay, hold on a moment.

Okay, what's your name?

My name is AC.

You know who I am, God dammit.

Okay.

Right now, that OJ's sitting there is the passenger seat with a g*n pointed at his own head.

Someone turned the TV on and there he is.

14 units of the Orange County Sheriff's Department and Highway Patrol following behind a good distance.

Oh my God, this isn't real, this can't be real.

We're dumbfounded.

Law enforcement is following Simpson.

They want him to stop.

Red lights and sirens.

It's not an escort.

Why are they allowing him to continue?

Really, the game plan is really being conducted by Mr. Simpson at this point and it's very much like when the president travels down a major thoroughfare, like a freeway.

I was wondering, okay, maybe around the next curve they've got it marked off and they're going to force him to stop.

It wasn't like they were going 100 miles an hour.

But I'm not a police tactician.

That was their call.

I've covered so many of these things, this was not usual police behavior.

If OJ Simpson were black, that sh*t wouldn't have happened.

He'd be on the ground getting clubbed.

But since he transcended race and color to the exalted status of celebrity, he got a motorcade.

This is not a chase, this is basically an accompaniment.

(ominous music)

Nobody is doing anything.

So I'm talking to Eddie Jo Fairbanks in the DA's office.

She said, "Well, I just happen to have his cell number, would you like it?

(laughing)

(phone ringing)

You there?

Just let me get to my house.

Okay, we're gonna do that.

I swear to you I'll give you, I'll give you me, I'll give you my whole body.

Okay...

I just need to get to my house.

Okay, we're gonna do that, just throw the g*n out the window.

I can't do that.

We're not gonna bother you, we're gonna let you go up there.

Just throw it out this window, please, you're scaring everybody.

This is not to keep you guys away from me, this is for me.

I know that, nobody's gonna hurt you.

This is for me.

He's trying, in my mind, to imply he's going to commit su1c1de, but he's not saying that.

So, I'm playing along with that.

(moaning)

Hey, everybody loves you, don't do this.

Just throw it out the window and nobody's gonna get hurt.

You've got a guy here that's, I don't know where his mind is, I really believe he k*lled two people.

But now he's got a loaded g*n, and he's being chased by cops.

Is he gonna start sh**ting at the cops?

Is he gonna sh**t at AC and k*ll...

Is he gonna blow his own brains out?

I do know if I can engage him in a conversation it's going to temporarily at least take his mind off the g*n.

I'm the only one that deserves this.

No, you're don't deserve that.

You do not deserve to get hurt.

Don't do this.

All I did was love Nicole.

All I did was love her.

I understand.

Love everybody, show everybody my whole life and I love everybody.

We know that and everybody loves you.

Your kids need you.

I've already said goodbye to my kids.

You're gonna hurt everybody.

I'm just gonna have to see.

No, don't I'm gonna go with Nicole. That's all I'm gonna do.

That's all I'm trying to do.

Think about everybody else, alright?

I couldn't on the freeway.

I couldn't do it in a field.

I want to do it at her grave.

I want to do it at my house.

You gonna go to the house?

We were told he was going to the Rockingham location.

And that's all we were told.

If they requested SWAT to handle something, that's because they can't handle it themselves.

I was told you're going to do the talking, you're going to be the negotiator.

Drive time from downtown to the west side was gonna take 30, 40 minutes.

We were trying to b*at him.

They were pressuring us. He's pretty close.

We were estimating we were about 10 minutes ahead.

The last thing we want is for him to get there before us.

Because now we're going to lose control.

And we're on the freeway and all the overpasses, there were people already staged.

Signs, free OJ, we love you OJ, What a bunch of losers.

I think people realized, hey, this is gonna be passing my neighborhood.

And they wanted to see OJ's last run.

This was not a somber event.

This was one of Los Angeles's largest parties.

(orchestral music)

This was lined with people.

(police sirens)

And they're running full speed down the street, trying to get to the location.

We're not used to seeing those types of crowds rush in.

(chanting) OJ! OJ! OJ! OJ!

District Attorney of Los Angeles, Mr. Gil Garcetti, will the fact that he has fled make things worse for him?

Any time you have an accused who leaves, that and the fact, we believe, shows a consciousness of guilt.

(chanting "Free OJ")

I think earlier in the week, all of us close to OJ didn't believe that he had been involved in this.

And now I think there's a sense of resignation and has been for the last 24 hours and we can't believe what's happening and there was nothing ever, ever in the past that would indicate that OJ would be capable of doing what he's doing right now.

Did they let you go?

They didn't say anything, all of a sudden, they just...

What was that?

Yeah.

Oh, okay, CBS is trying to get you in.

Now, he's pulling off now, they've just pulled off a main highway.

Judy Mullard, help us here.

I can't tell ya, looks like Santa Monica Freeway, heading I can't tell ya yet.

Look at all these people rushing up to the corner. No, it's an exit.

This word has obviously spread Judy, hang on, look at all these people rushing, waving...

(police sirens)

There is an absolutely utterly macabe nature to all this.

They've been cheering him on, yelling go Juice go.

Cheering him on, He pulled off at Sunset, off the 405, he's on his way back toward Brentwood.

When I got on scene there, I walked toward the residence, there was family inside the residence and they were eating.

Looked like they had like a sandwich buffet that they were doing and they were watching tv.

Dining.

I use that clinical term.

Nutty.

(police sirens)

Both sides of the street have pedestrians, he just passed us at Barrington.

Okay, Eric, its only now probably three minutes at the most I would say to his home in Brentwood.

They're passing the church installed there.

They are heading right into Brentwood now.

He's heading to my house.

He's making a right turn, I assume, that's up into Brentwood Park, and appears to be on the way to either his home or very close to his home.

We closed the gate on Rockingham, we left this one open to force him through and make him come into where we wanted him.

There was a sn*per team in this house across the street, there's a sn*per team on top of the roof at the residence.

And there was one across the street.

(police radio) Use your own discretion.

You take him down if you have to.

When'd you see the kids last, Juice?

He's pulling up in my driveway.

I know, I see you, I see you.

Please, toss the g*n.

Juice, just toss it.

He's pulling into his house, oh sh*t.

I've never seen anything like this.

Mr. Simpson, OJ please.

When we're standing in the threshold there, to my right is a television so, when the Bronco pulls into the driveway I see Bronco, Cawlings, Simpson in the backseat and then I look right here and I get the point of view that you're seeing.

Oh my goodness gracious.

He's come home after all of that.

Just as we're trying to get words out, a young man runs up to the driver's side of the door and starts hitting at AC Cawlings.

Who is that out there?

He's just trying to help.

He's just trying to help, man.

Kardashian said, "That's Jason Simpson, That's OJ's son."

So, I told Pepabrick, I said, "Go out there and get him."

Moved him out, now we get down to the business that we designed.

In this juncture, it's very fragile.

What exacerbates, what makes it crazy, is the noise, you had a helicopter seemed like about 50 feet off the deck, every car that was in the following had their red lights and sirens on.

If you just take a snapshot, you'd go, this is madness, absolute madness.

I watched that from the newsroom and when I saw a couple of the SWAT officers that I recognized run across the sh*t, I thought, oh my God, they're gonna k*ll him in the driveway.

Just toss it please.

Alright?

Juice, just toss the g*n.

I did not want him to get out of the car with a g*n in his hand, they'd have dumped him, they would not have had a choice.

Juice, come on, Juice.

They resolve most situations peacefully, but they are there to finish it one way or another.

OJ, no, no OJ.

Don't, no man, don't.

Juice, don't do it, Juice.

Pick it up.

I'm thinking, okay, there are a lot of people that are betting on us.

That we're going to screw this up.

That are cynical.

That believe that we are a brutal horrible organization.

And it's just not the case.

How do they know, that the police and the DA didn't make all this evidence up, to make him act the way that he's acting?

We were recovering from Rodney King and it's so important for the people to see things that go the right way.

There is so much on the news where things go the wrong way.

Normally, that would be on my mind, but that night it wasn't.

Doors opening.

That is Al Cawlings.

He's quite, quite upset at the moment.

Yeah.

Quite emotional here.

I've got to get Cawlings out.

As much as he was trying to help, he was interfering in where I needed to do.

I needed to speak directly to Mr. Simpson, to try and keep him from hurting himself.

And Mr. Cawlings was trying to be a go between.

He was very worried about his friend.

He kept asking us, please don't hurt him, please don't hurt him, please.

And he wanted to go back, he wanted to stay with his friend.

And we wouldn't allow it, we can't.

Police haven't made a move, we understand negotiations are still going on.

Simpson, you can see him, cradling what looks like framed photos, but clearly he has the barrel of a w*apon under his chin and it looks like he's just resting his chin on the barrel of the w*apon.

It was the look of a defeated man.

They are, according to police scanners, talking to OJ on the phone, from the inside the house, trying to negotiate something.

I said to him very early on, I don't think your children need to see another tragedy.

And he immediately changed the subject right to about himself, he wouldn't even speak to that.

I said I know where he's coming from.

There was so much memorabilia and stuff of him everywhere, normally you would see other photos of family members or something else, you didn't see those things, it was all him.

I told Mike Albanis, Mike, I can talk him into it.

We can appeal to his ego enough that he's going to come out for us.

His voice, in the beginning, was excited but then it called down.

The more we spoke about him, the more he liked it.

We want to show them that you're still the person you have been all these years.

This great football player, this great everything.

(dramatic music)

He asked me to come out to the car, and I said, "No, you're going to show them yourself, you're going to show them just how big and courageous you are, you're going to walk to me and you're going to leave the g*n in the car, you're going to walk out and show everyone, right now.

You're going to do this."

My personal spin, I think, he wanted to surrender when it was dark.

So that he wouldn't be seen.

Night has fallen here over Brentwood.

He had two picture frames that were cradled in his arms.

We told him, open the door, put your arm out with the frame, and the other arm out with the framed photo, so it's clear to everybody, so there was no mistaking.

Doors open, dome lights on, he's out of the vehicle.

Kinda just hunches over, shuffles six eight steps to us, and collapses in our arms.

He goes, "I'm sorry, I was never going to hurt you guys. I'm sorry.

I was never going to hurt you guys."

OJ's in custody.

We understand that OJ's in custody.

They're calling a code four.

All clear, all safe.

Thank you, thank you to God.

(reporters asking questions)

Unbelievable, we saw an incredible situation that's gone on for hours.

Incredible restraint by the Los Angeles Police Department.

The officer's kept their distance.

They allowed the SWAT team, the pros, to come in, they took their positions.

He'd asked me to stay with him throughout the process.

I promised him I would stay with him.

I said it's time, I gotta handcuff you now, you need to be handcuffed.

I'm sorry this is the way it works.

(police sirens)

As we take off, Simpson is amazed at the crowds.

He just couldn't believe there was this many people there.

(Free OJ, Free OJ)

And he said, "what are all these n*gg*r*s doing in Brentwood?"

(crowd cheering)

I walk outside and Shapiro's there.

Shapiro shakes my hand, he says, "Thank you for not k*lling OJ Simpson."

He grabbed me and went to hug me.

I go, let's just, I wasn't in the mood for a hug and maybe I wasn't professional.

I don't know the frickin guy, right, and he wants to weep on me?

(dramatic music)

Well this is nutty did. It really is.

I said, I have seen everything in law enforcement.

There is nothing else that can top this.

(dramatic music)

(piano music)

Later today in Los Angeles, OJ Simpson is expected to make his first court appearance.

OJ has been in jail, under a su1c1de watch, visited only by a psychiatrist and his lawyer.

Please, Alright, people.

Please speak up so you may be heard.

Uh, yes.

Pardon me, I'm sorry.

May we start all over again?

Yes.

He looked a mess.

He looked like someone who had committed m*rder.

There was nothing about the old smiling Simpson, about him that day.

Your charges for this complaint in that you willfully and unlawfully with pronounced forethought m*rder of Nicole Brown Simpson.

In count two your charge is the crime of m*rder in violation of penal code section 187.

That you willfully and unlawfully with pronounced forethought m*rder of Ronald Lyle Goldman.

When he initially entered the plea, he barely choked it out.

Not guilty.

Alright, then, the not guilty plea will be entered, the case will be set for a preliminary hearing within the statutory period.

Recess.

This case will be handled as every case is handled, the case will be thoroughly investigated by top notch investigators, we will present the prosecution in a thorough and professional manner.

I amongst others, recommended her.

I was aware of her successes in the court room.

I knew she was a very dynamic trial lawyer.

I want no one to forget the fact that Robert Barto wakes up every morning, and Rebecca Schaeffer lies buried in a grave in Oregon.

Worked extraordinarily hard, she was very facile with trace evidence, hair, fiber, and the like.

She was up to speed on DNA.

She was one of our best trial lawyers.

I think that with all the questions that we've been getting about the public sympathy for Mr. Simpson, we should not forget the fact that we have two victims, that were brutally slain.

I have to say, it never mattered to me who the defendant was, it was a question of who did it.

Whether their famous, whether their not famous.

They all get the same treatment.

You are looking at inmate number 4103970, OJ Simpson.

(camera clicks)

(cell doors shutting)

I believed he was innocent.

I was like everybody else, it was incomprehensible that my friend could do this.

I snuck into the jail to see him and there's this guy that was my buddy and he looked emaciated, he was in an orange jumpsuit, and he was shackled to the desk in front of me.

Then he looked at me on the other side of plexiglasses, close as he could be, and he said, "I swear to God, I didn't do this."

I believed him.

He asked me if I kind of would be the chronicler of the whole thing.

Would I write a book about the whole thing.

I backed away from that.

Then, in a moment of ultimate surrealism, I'm sitting with OJ and Lyle Menendez walks behind him.

And I just went, sh*t, this is more than my little pea brain can handle.

(dramatic music)

Bob, OJ Simpson is in a Los Angeles jail cell tonight.

His attorney says he spoke to him today and that Simpson was in tears.

Now, Cawlings, was himself, arrested on a felony charge of aiding a fugitive.

Get away from my f*cking house.

Simpson, had $10,000 in cash and a passport at that point.

I love OJ no matter what happens.

The m*rder with special circumstances, death penalty charges.

The final DNA tests are positive for intense and purposes, OJ Simpson really has no option but to admit that he k*lled.

The man who will lead the prosecution of the case, against OJ Simpson, is Los Angeles District Attorney, Gil Garcetti.

You said earlier, "It's not going to shock me if we see OJ Simpson sometime down the road say okay I did do it but I'm not responsible."

That certainly sounded, to me, like a prosecutor very comfortable with his case.

I am comfortable with the case, I don't mean to speculate as to what the defense is going to be but I have been a prosecutor for 25 years.

The evidence was so overwhelming, there was just no doubt.

A blood trail that led from Bundy all the way into his bedroom.

I don't think I'd ever seen that much evidence in any single case ever.

When you couple that with evidence of motivation, and that was the history of domestic v*olence, with Simpson physically and psychologically abusing Nicole Brown.

This is my woman.

This was a domestic v*olence case that culminated in m*rder.

End of story.

Both sides are going to try to place the publicity thier way but because this is a major celebrity, probably this is the most famous American ever charged with m*rder, there will not business as usual.

My former criminal law professor, Alan Dershowitz, was part of what would later become known as the dream team, OJ Simpson's lawyers.

So, I called up Alan, and I said, "You know, what do you think of this case?"

And he said, "I don't know, but you ought to look into this guy, this cop.

Mark Fuhrman, there's something bad about him."

I first met Mark during the execution of a second search warrant.

I was impressed, he seemed to have an eye for detail.

Some of his investigative moves, particularly going up to Rockingham, struck me as this is a smart detective.

Mark Fuhrman, M-A-R-K F-U-H-R-M-A-N.

When he testified at the preliminary hearing, he did a really good job.

Blood to the left of the footprint would indicate that the person that left the scene was bleeding from the left side of his body.

And the spot on the Bronco would coincide with that injury.

He was on top of his game.

His memory of the search of Rockingham was the primary thing.

And it was detailed and consistent.

And why was it that you did not secure the residence for a search warrant before finding the glove.

This is not a situation where we had the time to stand out in the street and just wait and wonder.

We had to do something.

I thought maybe this guy Fuhrman has done something wrong.

Maybe, he's been sued.

There was this dungeon like basement in downtown Los Angeles with all the records of civil court filings.

And I started burrowing through these records looking for Mark Fuhrman as a defendant.

And that's not what I found.

I found a lawsuit where Mark Fuhrman was the plaintiff.

He had actually sued the Los Angeles Pension Board asking to be relieved as a police officer and get a pension because his mind was so poisoned by hatred of black people.

And I thought to myself, now that's a story.

I show up uninvited at Robert Shapiro's office.

And I say, "I've been looking at Mark Fuhrman's file and there's some pretty amazing stuff in there."

And I remember, to this day, he sort of rocked back in his chair.

He said, "You saw that?"

I said, "Yeah".

He said, "You think that's bad, we think he planted the glove.

(camera clicks)

Fuhrman, according to this article had used a lot of racial epithets.

Having that out there, really brought home the fact that we've got a dynamic here we're gonna have to deal with.

They found a flaw in me, and then they made up a nexus, a connection to the flaw to the case.

I mean, I had a bad couple years but I came out better, I came out of it.

It is what it is.

That article came out at just about the same time, Johnny Cochran was coming aboard the defense team.

And my thought at the time was, here comes the race card.

(gospel music)

My name is Johnny L. Cochran Jr.

I am primarily a civil rights lawyer.

And I represent a number of clients who have had their civil rights abridged.

He and his firm were central players in this story of the LAPD and race in Los Angeles.

Growing up in America, any African American will tell you that, we know we have to run faster, jump higher, work harder, to do the same that anyone else has to do.

(applause)

Johnny Cochran was always the icon to young black, brown, and oppressed people in Los Angeles because Johnny was that young dashing lawyer who took on the police.

Johnny Cochran made his name as a public lawyer in the Deadwyler case.

The latest expl*si*n of v*olence in Watts really began here 11 days ago.

A n*gro motorist driving down here was rushing his wife to the hospital, she was having labor pains, they were stopped, stopped by a white patrolman.

One policeman got out and came around to my side and my husband leaned over me and asked him if he would lead him out to the hospital to care of me.

And then he, he didn't say anything, and he sh*t him.

And he fell over me.

(dramatic music)

Mr. Cochran would like to know, did you get inside the Deadwyler car with the upper part of your body voluntarily?

Yes sir.

Mr. Cochran would like to know, did you observe any weapons within the Deadwyler car?

No, sir, I did not.

Mr. Cochran wants to know, that became the catchphrase because the lawyer, himself, could not ask the questions.

He had to go through the county council.

Mr. Cochran would like to know, if you been trained to keep your w*apon away from a suspect?

Yes, sir.

Johnny was like 27-28 years old then.

He was a young whippersnapper.

Mr. Cochran would like to know, while you were at the Los Angeles police academy, did they train you to put your upper part of your body inside a car?

Not specifically that, no.

Because it was a televised trial, he became a hero to everybody in to the south central community.

Few people had higher standing, deeper standing.

Johnny was always that stalwart defender of justice, fighting against the bastille.

Each of the defendants across the board were found not guilty of the assaults on the police officers.

Mr. Settles was beaten, the booking photos show that.

I want to know if they had anything to do with his death.

I want to know, whether or not, he hung himself or whether or not he was hung.

The only version that you heard of what transpired was what the police officers told you, isn't that correct?

(dramatic music)

It's not that Johnny was the only good lawyer for OJ Simpson but I would say that he and his firm were the only lawyers that would really understand and argue this case in the context of the LAPD's relationship to African Americans.

Now, did he also like a big celebrity trial, you bet.

Michael Jackson has maintained his innocence from the beginning of this matter.

He still, maintains that innocence.

He was a big character, he was flamboyant.

I love you.

[Hi Johnny].

We were talking about different styles of lawyering and how you make a case to jury and one of the things he said about predominately African American juries, he goes Jimmy, when is what he used to call me, he said, Jimmy, blacks like big.

(laughing)

And he liked to be big.

(drums playing)

My daughter was in the Watts parade and Johnny Cochran was the grand marshal.

He said, "I want to see you guys at the trial."

I hadn't planned to go, but since he asked me, I said, well Johnny wants me to come, and he asked me to come, so I'm coming down here.

I'm gonna find a way to get here every day.

(dramatic music)

OJ Simpson is about appear in a Los Angeles courtroom.

He's going to enter a plea, a date for trial will be set, and a judge to oversee the trial is going to be appointed.

This is the time set for the arraignment of Mr. Simpson.

Mr. Simpson you are charged with the crime of m*rder.

Are you ready to enter a plea at this time?

Yes, your honor.

How do you plea to counts one and two?

Absolutely 100% not guilty.

That's when I want to hear, you're not guilty.

He was back on his feet and ready to tell the whole world that he was wrongly accused.

And it was just the biggest bunch of horse sh*t.

Thank you, you may be seated.

But he sold it.

I gave him a thumbs up.

And he looked over at me and he waved at me.

He was very good looking.

And that day he was really good looking.

(laughing)

I may not have thought he was a big celebrity but it became really clear to me super fast that he was to others.

OJ Simpson, I really admire the guy, football, and great actor.

OJ Simpson has been a hero of mine since college.

I think he's a great man and a a great hero, and has touched a lot of lives.

I don't think he did it, doesn't seem like that kind of person.

I'm assigning the case to Judge Lance Ito.

Judge Ito is an acceptable fashion.

Judge Ito will be accepted for the people as well.

Very well, thank you, then that is the assignment.

Here's the first time we'll really get to see the system.

To see if it really works.

For someone with some money, a celebrity.

A well loved, respected, cherished type of man.

Now, let's see if justice can work for him.

(dramatic music)

There's nothing more important during a jury trial, than the selection of your jury.

You can win or lose you case right there.

The issue of where to conduct the trial, the Santa Monica court house, largely white jury pool.

Downtown LA, largely black jury pool.

Gil Garcetti, the DA, always said, "Well it just logistically had to be downtown."

A lot of us thought that Gil Garcetti, elected official, needed to protect his reputation in the black community, a big voting block, by keeping the case downtown.

I'm confident that we can, indeed, find white, black, brown, every color juror there is, who will, indeed, be fair and impartial.

I think it would have been societally better, from the DA's perspective, to win a conviction downtown.

And to not be accused of having stacked this, in such a way that whites were to stand in judgment of black men.

If you have a juror who believes police never do anything wrong, you're in tough shape.

Certainly, you can find most people, want to believe their police officers are fair and want to do their job and so that's a given, you start with that, but you've got to find that person who understands that in the real world that doesn't happen all the time.

We interviewed over 5000 people in Los Angeles in perpetration for the OJ Simpson trial.

The conclusions were that just presenting the straight up evidence, you weren't going to get a lot of sympathetic African American females, many harbored a resentment that this famous athlete, this charming guy, had a married a white, blonde woman rather than someone from his own community.

But the antagonism was to her and not him.

OJ you look gorgeous right now.

How come you're so loyal to this man who married a white woman?

And was dating her while he was married to a black woman.

I mean, doesn't any of this make you feel a little less defensive of him.

Marcia Clark had this faith about her ability to connect with African American woman.

African American women had been some of my best jurors on previous cases.

Even when the defendant was an African American.

There was just a way, an easy way I had, that I could talk to them.

Now, we will show you the other side of the smiling face that you saw on the Hertz commercial.

We had trial simulations.

The one you never saw on camera.

Marcia was not received positively.

Marcia Clark, every black woman, bitch.

When they had the mock jury, the mock trial, and some of the comments came back about you, about maybe being really hard or tough, what did you think when you heard some of that.

I was very surprised, the balance of them said good things, so, you know, the media takes one kernel and blows it up into a huge bowl of popcorn.

Marcia tended to discount the fact that black women jurors didn't seem to appreciate her very much.

I had no illusions about what I was going to be up against.

The odds were stacked against us in terms of the African American jurors because that's what the polls showed.

A California poll, released today, found that only 10% of blacks, who were surveyed, believed it is very likely, that Simpson was guilty.

The ideal juror would have been younger, i.e. someone not familiar with Simpson at the high of his fame, Asian, or probably white.

All we want, just give me, 12 fair, responsible, unbiased jurors who are going to follow the law and put aside their personal feelings and do what the court and the law requires.

In Los Angeles today, the judge and lawyers in the OJ Simpson m*rder trial began interviewing prospective jurors face to face.

Just to set the scene for you, when all the jurors walk in, all the attorneys are lined up like a receiving line, and several times during the proceedings, OJ Simpson would turn and seem to make eye contact with people, and occasionally smile at people in the audience.

The quest for impartial jurors has been going on now for more than a month.

They called me to the chair.

When I sat down, I didn't even put my purse down.

Because I felt like it was going to be that quick.

They were going to say, you're excused.

I'm looking at the list, I know what's coming up.

I know who's left behind me.

I know what I've got in the box.

I have to look and see, am I going to do better or worse.

There was a process, of what I have labeled as reverse Darwinism, I call it the survival of the most unfit jurors.

Many it seems want to watch, but fewer wish to serve.

91 of 219 people summoned for Simpson jury duty, said in a questionnaire, a likely 6 month trial would be too great a hardship.

I think it's the only way, to ensure that we are going to have a fair trial for both sides.

Jurors who were available for six months skewed heavily towards a lower socioeconomic strata of jurors and a much more diverse jury pool.

A lot of smart jurors who might have been open to DNA scientific evidence simply went by the wayside.

We didn't have many of our type of juror.

I thought, okay, I better quit while I'm behind and not get further behind because it was only going to go downhill from there.

They said, your honor we accept, and at that point, I sunk in my chair.

I was stunned.

Oh my God, oh my God, and I told my daughter, and she said, oh mother, oh my God.

And my son, he said, oh my God, mother.

And that was it.

In the end, we did the best we could with a bad lot.

We wound up with eight African American women, I thought, you know it will be an uphill battle but I think they'll listen.

Thrilled, we're thrilled.

We were so stunned that we had such a large collection of favorable jurors.

75% of the actual jurors believed that he could not have committed these murders because he excelled at football at USC.

The only thing that could get you through some times is that guys look at each other and say, hey man, we are SC.

(laughing)

We were about to walk in to the lockup from the court room.

OJ looked back one last time, it was me, Johnny, we were going back to talk about everything and OJ said, "Guys, if this jury convicts me, maybe I did do it."

(birds chirping)

(orchestral music)

It has seven months to reach this point.

We are, and I think the client, is really, really pleased, that we can have someone stand up and speak to the tryers of fact.

Time to stop posturing.

Let's go to trial.

Have a good one everybody.

Five, four, three, two, one.

Council and the audience please be seated.

Alright, are both sides prepared to go forward, Mr. Cochran?

We are, your Honor.

Ms. Clark?

Yes, we are, your Honor.

Alright, do the people wish to make an opening statement?

Yes we do.

Alright, you may proceed.

Mr. Darden, thank you.

When we started off, the prosecution had their team of lawyers.

Your Honor Judge Ito, Mr. Cochran, Mr. Shapiro, and Dean Allman.

And here's this new face at the table.

And to you ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Good morning.

And I'm like, why are they bring him here?

And we're here today, obviously, to resolve an issue, to settle a question, a question that has been on the minds of people throughout the country these last seven months.

Certainly has been on the mind of my people up in Richmond, California and friends in Fayetteville, Georgia and all across the country and everybody wants to know, did OJ Simpson really k*ll Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman?

It was apparent to everyone in America, why he was now on the case.

Well, certainly because he was black.

If that was pearbuddy, because he was a good lawyer.

He's a good lawyer, we needed to add to the team.

Thicken the team up, that's the party line.

I thought Chris was a very good trial lawyer.

Any questions for Chris?

He was young, he was learning.

Come on, man, come on.

Look at this guy, come on, we have to drag him over.

But he was very good.

There was a little bit of cockiness.

But it was not an offensive cockiness.

I don't care what anybody says, I dress much better than Johnny Cochran.

(laughing)

Johnny, I'm going to introduce you to my, well I'm gonna show you the rack where I buy my suits.

He had a pretty good reputation as someone who can build a case.

And of course, most notably, Chris was black.

And Marcia and I were not.

You hear a lot about this talk about justice.

I guess, Dr. Martin Luther King said it best, when he said that, injustice anywhere is a thr*at to justice everywhere.

So, we are now, embarked upon this search for justice.

I have to tell you personally, for all the cases I've tried, I never felt so white.

It seems to me that the fact that blood mysteriously appears on vital pieces of evidence and it's predicted what the results will be regarding DNA, when that evidence is still in the police lab, is devastating evidence of something far more sinister.

Using the concept of a conspiracy, historically, in Los Angeles will resonate with diverse jurors, who know about this history.

You had to have someone to blame.

Detective Mark Fuhrman, now it's very interesting, that the prosecution never once mentioned his name yesterday.

It's like they just want to hide him, but they can't hide him, he very much a part of this case.

Chris Darden saw that this case was becoming this weird referendum on the LAPD, on the history of race in Los Angeles.

And Chris, he understood those issues.

He had worked in what was then our SID unit, which investigated police abuse cases.

They obtained those warrants simply to level and make uninhabitable those locations.

Andyof the police officers that were called to testify by us, lied on the stand, it was obvious to everyone that they were lying.

Every black lawyer idolized Johnny Cochran in 1994.

And I say, Chris Darden wanted to out Johnny, Johnny.

He wanted to b*at the man on the biggest stage of his career.

Police detective Mark Fuhrman, did he find or plant a bloody glove at Simpson's estate?

Judge Lance Ito must soon decide whether the jury gets to hear about detective Fuhrman's checkered past.

We knew Fuhrman was going to be an important witness.

People had indicated that he had used r*cist language in an offensive way, I think, in a way that jurors and everybody else would not like.

The N word, or any other racial epitaph, has an inflammatory effect, that is incomparable, and to that specific issue, Mr. Darden wishes to address the court, and I think I'll conclude my comments at this time.

Mr. Darden, good morning.

Good morning, your Honor.

Your honor, I think the best indication or evidence on just how inflammatory the use of the word is, is the fact that it appears that Mr. Cochran and I, the only two black lead lawyers on each side of the council table are some how dragged into this issue, to argue the issue to the court.

They used him to make the argument, that an African American jury can not listen to the utterance of that word in some sort of dispassionate, objective way.

It blinds people, it will blind the jury.

It will blind them to the truth.

They won't be able to discern what's true and what's not.

He hit the nail on the head.

He said, if you do this, you know, then that's all that this case is gonna be about.

All they'll think about is frame up, frame up, frame up.

All they do is mention the word, say to Mark Fuhrman, hey did you ever use that N word, and he'll say, Yeah and it's over.

He must have planted the glove.

I remember whispering to Johnny, is this n*gg*r serious?

And I'm not saying Mark Fuhrman is a r*cist.

Is this n*gg*r crazy?

He was suffering from stress and it has to be stressful to be a police officer in the city of LA, geez the stuff that is going on in this city in the last five to six years.

Is he serious?

Or is he just carrying the white man's bucket?

It will give them a test, and the test will be, who's side are you on?

The side of the white prosecutors and the white policemen or on the side of the black defendant and his very prominent and capable black lawyer.

That's what it's gonna do, either you're with the man or you're with the brothers.

I must say, and this is one of those sort of bracing moments, this is why you need diversity in newsrooms, by the way, is that I came out of there thinking that Darden made a pretty good point.

That it's such a shocking word, that I found myself flinching at the use of it.

My colleague, Andrea Ford, an African American women, was outraged.

She felt it was really insulting to blacks, to African Americans, to think they couldn't hear the word and give it the proper weight.

And I remember thinking, after talking to Andrea, wow, that didn't really occur to me.

It is a reminder, that who we are and how we're brought up does affect the way we hear things.

Thank you very much, Judge Ito.

I have a funeral to attend today but I would be remiss were I not at this time to take this opportunity to respond to my good friend, Mr. Chris Darden.

When Johnny gets angry, which is very rare, you know, he's remarkably articulate and good.

Johnny got angry that day.

His remarks this morning are perhaps the most incredible remarks I've heard in the court of law in the 32 years I've been practicing law.

His remarks are demeaning to African Americans as a group.

And so I want, before I go to this funeral, to apologize to African Americans across this country.

African Americans live with offensive words, offensive looks, offensive treatment everyday of their lives.

To say they can't be fair is absolutely outrageous.

I am ashamed that Mr. Darden would allow himself to become an apologist for this man.

You can't justify that in a civilized society.

Nobody wants introduce race into this case, your honor.

Johnny was dying to get the word n*gg*r in front of the jury.

He also did it in such a way that, frankly, he made Darden look ridiculous.

To come here and testify as an expert to you of what black people think in America.

All across America, today, believe me black people are offended at this very moment.

I think that Johnny was rough on him.

I think it hurt his feelings.

A lot of people thought that Chris would end up at the Cochran firm.

And, obviously, that didn't happen.

People had contempt for him because they felt like he was a tool that was being used.

So time to not to do things that it seems to me will last a person's entire career such as insulting a whole race of people who have meant so much to this country.

Let's be clear about this, the subtext of everything that Johnny Cochran said about Chris Darden was, Uncle Tom.

And it was egregiously unfair.

Johnny Cochran, among other things, tried OJ was an African American defendant.

When OJ Simpson didn't really have much of a reputation as an African American person, really.

I used to walk on the wild side, now I just take a brisk walk.

This was not a person that you thought of as a, kind of, iconic black figure in Los Angeles.

I mean, he lived two blocks from Mayor Riordan.

(dramatic music)

We wanted the jury to see Bundy but the defense said, well if we're going to do that, we have to go to Rockingham.

They do not need to go to Rockingham but if they do, show them where they found the glove.

That's all that arguable relevant.

(police radios)

We come to find that Ito was going to let them go into Rockingham.

He's going to march the jury through the inside of the house, which is relevant to what?

No part of the crime happened inside the house.

What are we doing there?

What we did that day is create an illusion.

When you would walk up the grand staircase there was a large wall with pictures of the family, pictures of friends, pictures of OJ's career, problem was the overwhelming majority of pictures were of Caucasian friends and colleagues of his.

We had an African American jury and we wanted to make sure that the home setting would reflect the themes that we wanted to reflect.

We took all of his white friends down.

Put all of his black people up.

Pictures he probably had never seen before because that is what we were told the jury would identify with.

We made him blacker.

There was a Norman Rockwell lithograph that we took from Johnny's office and we put that picture at the very top of the stairs.

We did not remove all of his pictures with white people.

The whole house would have been gone, would have been dark, we didn't do that.

You have got to be kidding me, it's night and day.

This was an African American man's house.

Who had no associations with any white guys whatsoever.

Marcia saw the wall and she said, "Carl, you know damn well, he has never had this many black people on his wall, his entire life."

I said, "Marcia, what are talking about?

How dare you accuse us of such things."

I was miserable, I was angry.

That is very dirty pool.

If we had had a Latin jury, we would have had a picture of him in a sombrero, there would have been a mariachi band out front, we would have had a pinata at the upper staircase.

I objected, we went outside, we convened a hearing and I said, this has no relevance whatsoever.

They've now changed the scene.

It was never relevant to begin with and now it's completely irrelevant.

You know the defense is always going to push the envelope, that's what they do.

It's up to the judge to stop them.

Ito let them get away with it.

(dramatic music)

All of a sudden he became black.

They threw off the cape and now he's one of them.

I was surprised to see the depth of feeling that so many people in the black community, certainly those around the courthouse, had for him.

I feel that he is not guilty and I also feel that he is being unfairly treated as so have a lot of African American persons who have been through the judicial process.

I think that you find among black people, an incredible amount of forgiveness for anybody living through the pain of being black in America.

They were not involved with OJ in terms of critical thinking.

Why does he mean so much to you?

You know, I can't answer that, this is just something thats really struck a cord with me.

And I'm just compelled to be here.

He was a black man who was on trial that they perceived that white people were trying to unfairly harm.

They're trying to railroad him, they need to find the m*rder*r.

Go out and look for the m*rder*r.

He's accused but we all know he didn't do it.

He was wealthy, he was powerful, he was this, he was that, there is a B-U-T, but, he was black.

So, he didn't do it?

No, he didn't do it.

How do you know?

I know he didn't do it.

How do you know?

I just know.

You may be at the top house in Beverly Hills, and I may be in the basement of a place in Watts but we are connected.

(dramatic music)